Look, I love love. When I was younger, I used to go on The Ritz website to plan my wedding and believed that £30,000 was incredibly cheap for catering. Romcoms constantly played in the background, and I had my sights set on being a wedding planner. Yes, this career ambition was one of many, as I had also wanted to be an astrophysicist after watching Brian Cox, until I turned up to my first physics lesson and realised I was in love with Brian, not physics. Likewise, my dreams of becoming a wedding planner were short-lived after my primary school crush rejected me and I became incredibly jaded (he will rue the day). Even so, I’ve stayed a romantic despite my childhood rejection and the fact that I have the love life of a stick of celery left at the back of the fridge. I love to see my friends in love, I could recite the script of 27 Dresses from memory, and, at the same time, I’m also happy to be single. I love my own company. I treat myself well, and I like the fact that I’m a very cheap date who only requires the one drink. However, there is one undeniable, universal truth that remains despite these things: cuffing season is absolute hell.

“The Government’s emergency alert system has instructed every happy couple to go to your whereabouts”

The nights are longer, the air is colder, and you can never find the right coat so end up freezing in a jacket, which looks lovely, but is as thin as a sheet of clingfilm and was not worth the £60 you paid for it. It is in these moments, when you are shivering along King’s Parade, that the thought drifts into your mind: ‘it would be nice if someone were here to lend me their coat’. A thick one, from Mountain Warehouse, with great pockets. And you smile at the idea of this coat, before realising that you have made up this scenario, which causes you to walk home listening to Phoebe Bridgers. And suddenly, as Saviour Complex begins to play, every couple in Cambridge crosses your path. It’s as if the Government’s emergency alert system has instructed every happy couple to go to your whereabouts the second you are miserable and alone. In these few months of the year, being alone seems to hit a little harder: your friends in relationships seem to shine a little brighter, and singleness becomes something almost to fear. Exhibit A: Bridget Jones starts and ends at Christmas and portrays the ideal and unideal scenarios of cuffing season. At the beginning of the film, she’s alone dressed as a carpet: unideal Christmas. At the end of the film, she’s in love wearing matching reindeer jumpers with a gorgeous man with inherited wealth: ideal Christmas. Halloween is a time inundated with couples’ costumes. You cannot possibly go to the party dressed as salt without pepper, that is insane.

“Yes, I may be single, but I also I have no Brad holding me back”

So, as these things play through my mind on a Friday evening, I do what most single people do when spiralling into a pit of self-woe: I watch a horror film. In times of distress, I find that watching a horror film puts things into perspective. Yes, I may be single, but at least I’m not being chased with an axe (which I am eternally grateful for because I have a very slow reaction time). Also, single people in horror films always have better odds because they’re not busy having sex in an abandoned barn and they’re not running back into danger to save their lousy boyfriend who is about to be killed. Yes, I may be single, but I also I have no Brad holding me back. That is a beautiful scenario. I’m really quite lucky if I think about it.

After watching said horror film, I go to a bar, walking very quickly as I’m now paranoid from watching Scream. Why am I going to a bar, you ask? I’m going to a bar because it is a Friday night, and I am single, 20, and unstoppable so obviously I am going to flirt with a stranger and order a blackcurrant lemonade. In Fleabag, Kristin Scott Thomas’ character says, “there’s nothing more exciting than a room full of people”, which encapsulates perfectly how freeing it is to be single. When you’re on your own, nothing is written when you walk into a room. Sometimes all you need to do is make someone laugh to realise that you don’t need to be with someone to connect with someone. There are a lot of people you haven’t met yet, isn’t that cool?

“I’m not Carrie Bradshaw: I spent 20 minutes the other day contemplating ranting to a squirrel”

Despite this, as the bar closes, I walk home and realise I’m sad again, so I call up my best friend and cry on the phone. It’s a mess, I’m a mess. She asks me what’s wrong and I start crying over the price of blackcurrant lemonade in this economy. Then I tell her that I watched a horror film, flirted with a stranger, did all the things you’re supposed to do when you’re sad in an attempt to remind yourself that you’re single, 20 and unstoppable, but that it didn’t work. I’m not Carrie Bradshaw: I spent 20 minutes the other day contemplating ranting to a squirrel about the woes of balancing a desire to be independent with a deep yearning for connection in a time of dating app hell, because I thought my friends in relationships wouldn’t understand and I felt that the squirrel could maybe empathise.

Then I remember the look of bewilderment on the squirrel’s face and burst out laughing, and my friend and I continue laughing over the phone all the way back home. The truth of the matter is that sometimes being single doesn’t feel great, especially when this time of year constantly showcases how everyone but you seems to be wildly in love. But there’s also so much joy and possibility in being alone: in laughing with your friends, in flirting with strangers, in buying a thicker coat for yourself and walking out with a pep in your step winking at a squirrel on the way. Make the most of these months. Being single is such an incredible moment in your life, and you never know how long you’ll get this time for. As I get into bed, I decide that going to a Halloween party dressed as a saltshaker without pepper isn’t sad, it’s chic. And I make a promise to myself that if I ever do fall in love, I won’t forget that.